It was a useful reminder not everyone is looking for the same thing. A lot attention is given to these qualities by hi fi enthusiasts, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the visitors actually preferred the digital replay, a better experience than reality. If anything the digital playback sounded fuller and richer than the real thing – hi fi added qualities. It was with some relief I thought the musician playing sounded better than the digital recording, but it was a close-run thing. An acoustic guitarist played, following which we listened to a recording of what we had just heard – a Nagra 24/196 digital recorder, played back through an audio monitor system, of course. One of the highlights of the National Audio Show the other week was an interesting presentation by a sound engineer of the difference between live music and a recording of live music.
It’s my blog, and we are going to have a little variety. Thinking of suggestions, when I was playing in a band many years ago someone came up to us and asked: Do you do requests? Sure, I said, what would you like us to do? W hy don’t you hurry up and get off the stage! Earlier posts remain open if you want to add to those, you are welcome. Outfitted with a V15 Type VxMR-Shure’s last state-of-the-art pickup, now discontinued (sighs short and frequent should be exhaled)-and giving me pleasure to this day, the AR XA will occupy a place in my permanent collection as long as I enjoy the reproduction of music in my home.Taking a break from the marvellous conversations sparked by recent interactive posts, I want to catch up on events in the audiophile department. I am also going to post some more records shortly, but LJC will be back with more polls and interactive questions, don’t worry. I foolishly sold my XA in the late Seventies, but several years ago I found a brand-new one and snapped it up. So it is altogether fitting that Villchur’s little masterpiece has a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art’s industrial design collection. Turntables as diverse as Ariston, Linn, Thorens, Sota, Oracle, SME, and Basis would likely not have been designed the way they are had there been no XA. The influence of its tuned suspension is profound. Like so much else that came from the brain and bench of Edgar Villchur, the XA was a pioneering design that enabled tens of thousands of music lovers to enjoy first-class vinyl playback. Not until I acquired a Thorens TD125 with an SME 3009 II Improved and a Shure V15 Type III did I get a significant improvement, and even then my modest little XA/M91E was hardly embarrassed. In fact, most of them didn’t sound as good, and all were a lot pricier. Yet nothing really sounded better (especially in the low end). When I got a bit more money, I tried “better,” fuller-featured setups with supposedly superior arms. And, man, did that setup ever sound good: clean, low distortion, involving, with amazingly quiet backgrounds. My choice of pickup was Shure’s M91E (a notch below its flagship V15 Type II), which at 1.25 grams tracked anything I placed on the platter. Provided you mounted the XA on a sturdy table or shelf, nothing disturbed the stylus/grove interface. Suspended on three damped, tuned springs, the platter and arm were so effectively isolated from the environment that, as AR liked to demonstrate, you could pound the top of the plinth with a hammer and no sound came through the system. What really sold me on the XA, however, apart from its affordability and the stellar reviews, was its isolation. There was no antiskating (if this bothered you, Villchur advised increasing tracking force about fifteen percent). Balance was static, and tracking force was set with the counterweight and supplied plastic scale and weights. Its only switch was on/off, its features Spartan to say the least-going from 33.3 to 45rpm required repositioning the belt on the pulley (there was no pitch adjustment)-but its classic mid-century-modern style reflected its single-minded purposefulness. A little history: My first serious turntable, acquired in 1969, was an Acoustic Research XA, a belt-driven integrated designed by the great Edgar Villchur. Long before the Linn-Sondek came on the scene and made a big deal about it, my experience suggested that turntables did affect the sound of reproduced music in significant ways yet for a long time I refused to believe the evidence of my own senses because it ran so contrary to the common wisdom.
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